Real-time studies of multilingual Palau: Language change over 20 years

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16H03412
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: MATSUMOTO Kazuko 東京大学, 大学院総合文化研究科, 准教授 (80350239)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: diglossia / colonial koine / feature pool / immigrant koine / ダイグロッシア / コロニアル・コイネー / フィーチャー・プール / 移民コイネー

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research project aims to explore the way in which multilingualism in Palau has evolved over time by reinvestigating the same community two decades after my initial research. In recent years variationist sociolinguists have increasingly conducted real-time studies of language change in monolingual communities. Given the rarity of this approach in the study of societal multilingual communities, this research project was methodologically motivated to fill a gap by reassessing multilingualism in postcolonial Palau.
The restudy conducted in 2017-2018 provides real-time evidence to assess the direction and progress of change in multilingualism in Palau where diglossia continues to remain stable owing to the unpopularity of written Palauan. Real-time analysis of Palauan Japanese and Palauan English Corpora highlights the discontinuum between once vibrant postcolonial Japanese and formally learnt contemporary Japanese, and the emergence of a highly localised variety of English.

Free Research Field

社会言語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究はこれまで実時間調査があまり行われてこなかった多言語社会において、ダイグロッシアや借用語、接触言語の研究に実時間調査を採用するという極めて前例の少ない斬新な事例を提供することができたと考える。またパラオ日本語のデータは言い換えれば日本統治時代を知る高齢者からの口述記録でもあるため、言語学研究のみならず歴史研究分野への貢献にも繋がる。戦争体験の風化が叫ばれる今日において、戦争体験の次世代への継承を図ることで一般社会に対して大きな貢献になりうると考える。